


Sky, Steel. Steel, Sky.

by orphan_account



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Drabble Collection, Friendship, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 18:02:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3391040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Reno - Centric drabbles, in rough chronological order, from under the plate, to the almost-end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Point of It

**Author's Note:**

> Moved over from a tumblr on which I am no longer active. May be added to in the future. Big, glaring gaps that need filling in.

They called it a game, because calling it what it actually was left a weird taste in everybody’s mouth.

That, and you could make a lot of money at it if you knew what you were doing. Reno knew what he was doing.  
Trying to judge how much time you had by sight didn’t work, not in this part of the tunnels. The headlights came on blinding almost at once. You’d either bail to early, or end up a stain on the tracks like Jamie last week.

You had to go by feel, and sound, which is probably why his buddies all started to panic when they saw he was standing there with his eyes closed, listening hard and letting his bones rattle as the train bears down on him.

"The hell are you doing?"

"Move, Red!"

"He’s going to-"

There are gaps in some parts of the track, places you can drop down between the boards into the disused service tunnels well after you’d have run out of time to jump away, and Reno’s still skinny enough to fit between them.

He thinks he hears Lisa screaming in the heart-stop second where he steps back and just drops, trusting memory to catch his hands where they need to be, but it’s swallowed by the bellow of the train, close enough to feel, and he just hangs on, lets the sound and weight of the thing knock his teeth together, crashing through him until he can’t feel his hands or his arms or his fucking lungs anymore.

It takes about ninety seconds for the train to pass, and when he climbs back up, pulls himself back to steady ground the horrified faces  of the other teens flash rapidly through confusion, disbelief, happiness, anger, happiness again.

He was alive, and now he’d have the money in his pocket to keep himself that way another week.

What mattered other than that?


	2. Where You Came From

"Riley! Wait up, yo."

"What makes you think I’m waitin’ for you?"

"Well yeh ain’t left yet, righ’?"

"No, but I was gonna. Come on already." And he knows that Riley’s just playing around, because the basketball the other teen’s been bouncing breaks its rhythm and flies towards him. Reno breaks into a jog anyway, once he catches it, because it’s been at least two weeks since they got to hang around just for the fun of it, and he can’t help himself.  
Riley’s not his best friend, but he’s not far off either. Had seen Reno take his breaks near the park, and pulled him into a game one day, even though the rest of the neighborhood team had protested that he was too short, and too skinny. Riley’d said whatever, he looked fast, and Reno’d been more than happy to prove him right. “Sorry, contact ran late on me.”

"You should stick to renting." Reno catches up, and Riley catches him with a friendly elbow and half-annoyed smirk that says he thinks he knows better.  
"Nah, man. Wanna ge’ out of there. Runnin’ an’ shit is more fun anyway, yo. ‘Sides, I didn’ help you out on tha’ weapons job, you’d be kinda dead now, righ’? Oh yeah-" He stops to dig a wad of crumpled bills out of his pocket, smooths them out a little before waving them in Riley’s direction, with an open grin. "Jae-Sun’s okay now. He was way sick, though, dunno what woulda happened if yeh didn’ front me this."

"Any time man, you done it for me before."

"Yeah, tha’s the other reason I like this kinda work, righ’ ? Pay is better."

"And you’re good at it." There’s a hint of sarcasm there that Reno lets just roll off him. Riley talks a lot of shit, but doesn’t mean a quarter of it.

"And I’m damn good at it, yo."

It had always been like that between them. Light, and easy, and they helped each other out. As they walk  into the shadows towards the park, and the ball court, Reno falling into his usual idle chatter, and  Riley keeping him on his toes about it, he figures that’s how it will always be.


	3. Why You Ran

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings: Violence

"Riley wait-" Riley doesn’t wait, and he doesn’t so completely that Reno realizes there’s nothing he could have said or done that would have stayed his hand, and that sets his heart beating panicked a hell of a lot more than making nice with the wall, or the weight behind him with his arm bent, or the upward twist of it that’s just a little farther than his shoulder or elbow really want to go. "What the fuck!? Riley what the fuck-“

"Told you to stick to renting, Red." The quiet click of switchblade.

And Reno hadn’t really been fighting before, didn’t want to risk actually hurting his friend, but now the sudden burst of confusion, and anger, and getting it stills him.  
"Is tha’ wha’ this-? I don’t take no jobs tha’ mess with yours, yo. Yeh know tha’. Shit, Riley, I help-” The tip of the blade bites into the skin over his cheekbone, and he shuts up because as much as it fucking hurts, he also can’t actually believe this is happening. Slow. Far away.

"That ain’t the point Red. Point is I told you you were good at it, and I told you to stay out of it, and you gotta learn to listen."

All at once the slow and the far let up, and he does fight, without any thought behind it. Throws his head back hard, brings his foot down on one of Riley’s boots. All it gets him is the knife jerking through skin at an odd angle.

The boots are steel toed, and he’d bought them with the split earnings of the last contraband they’d run together.


	4. The Things You Remembered

Having received his orders, Reno pushed his bowl away, and stood to leave, quietly relieved that this meeting hadn’t gone any differently than any other, in spite of the rather obvious alterations he’d picked up since the last time Tseng had had work for him. 

The jagged lines cut over his cheekbones didn’t hurt anymore. Not physically. But to him, they represented a serious lack of judgement, even weakness. If they’d said the same thing to the Turk, well, that was one job the kid could count himself out of.

But so far, he hadn’t said anything.

"Go’ it, yo. Coun’ the blueprints good as recovered."

The owner of the food stall, who was used to these exchanges, and, Reno had learned, one of Tsengs informants himself, said nothing, and simply cleared the dish away. The redhead made it nearly a block and a half away before he became aware of very quiet, quick footsteps following him

"Wait a moment." Reno stopped and turned slowly, heart hammering as he realized the Turk had followed him. Of course, even if he’d dis-proven his usefulness, Tseng wouldn’t get rid of him right in front of a witness. But why hadn’t he just- "You’ve lost weight." The older man continued matter-of-factly, nothing in his polite demeanor changed. "I won’t ask about the scars, but I imagine business at home has slowed?"

That was…not what Reno had expected, and while his whole body was still primed to flee, surprise pulled a truthful answer out of him. Business had been slow. The scaring made his client base uncomfortable.

His face burned when Tseng reached into his jacket pocket, and counted out an extra handful of bills, but any protest he could make was once again cut short by the sheer unexpectedness of what the Turk was doing.

"I’ll not have my best contact starving before he’s old enough to wear a suit. This should be enough. When I see you next week, I expect the damage will be covered."  
When he handed over the money, it was punctuated with a hair ruffle that was decidedly, if uncharacteristically affectionate.

If the teen’s loyalty had ever been in question, it wasn’t after that day. Because in that brief exchange, it had seemed rather like the Turk actually cared about him.


	5. Who You Met

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have this absurd desire for pre-bc Aerith and Reno to be friends, initially by way of mutual acquaintance, and then turning into something strong in it's own right.

This was unequivocally the worst decision he had ever made.

Fifteen-year-old Reno skidded around a corner and narrowly avoided crashing into an over-full trashcan, pausing the half second it took to shove it down behind him, in the hopes that it would stall the monster on his heels for a little longer than that. He wasn’t far now from the border between sectors, if he could just get to the market, and people…

He barely even knew the girl. Had only actually spoken to her a handful of times, knew her more by sight than anything. Seen her in the presence of  a mutual acquaintance…friend? 

Didn’t matter. She was obviously important to the Turk, and the Turk was important to him, so when he’d happened to pass the playground on his walk home, and seen Aerith standing there, two little kids behind her, stance strong but shaky, materia-less staff in hand, and a growling fang in front, he’d done the first thing he could think of; grabbed a chunk of busted concrete and thrown it and shouted a lot.

It had had the desired affect.

He had no good idea of how long he’d been running at a dead sprint, too keyed up on adrenaline and click of teeth that were never far enough behind for comfort, but he knew that each new breath ached and his footing was starting to slip. The only thought in his head was to keep going.

Another sharp corner, and the rewarding sound of a yelping snarl as the creature ran into the side of a building behind him.

But he’d chosen wrong.

Instead of a clear path there was a wall in front of him.

The half-euphoric clarity of instinct and endorphin told him he could scale it, but the monster couldn’t, and he jumped. Propelled off the wall of a closed laundry into a cat leap, catching the top.

Didn’t stop the things teeth ripping through his jeans and into his calf in the heartbeat before he could haul himself over it.  
The safety of the far side of the wall was the probably the most intense rush of relief and victory he’d ever felt. It was also the first time in years he could remember crying just because something fucking hurt.

The next time he see’s Aerith, she’s the one running, across the street, with his name on her lips. He hadn’t even known she knew it.


	6. Where You Ended Up

Reno slept on couches and under tables and curled up in chairs. He was perfectly happy to catch a nap in a pile of laundry, and, on some days, in the shower, provided nobody snuck up and turned the damn thing on.

Beds though. Beds where a problem. What was one person meant to do with all that space? Who could sleep with that many exposed angles? But one had come with his ShinRa paid apartment, and he’d only even bothered to  think about getting…stuff…for it when a coworker had gotten smashed at his place, and been confused and mildly offended when Reno had given her the couch and slept on the floor.

Reno had only been a Turk, and an Upsider, for a month or two, but he was already learning to hate the things that told people that. The things he didn’t know, having once been poor even by slum standards.

Even as a little kid, when things were good, the apartment his parents had lived in was so small he hadn’t had his own room. He’d had the living room and the couch, and a some toys in a box, and a terrarium in the corner.

Needless to say, standing alone in the aisle of a big, upside department store, more than a dozen colors and brands and thread counts in front of him was sort of…intimidating. Not that anyone would ever get him to admit it. 

How big was the bed anyway? Full? That sounded-yeah that sounded right.

He picked up the package with the lowest price tag he could find. Dark grey, with white edges. Simple. That should be fine, right?


	7. Who You Became

"Ya ever heard of the King’s Dilemma, or whatever the hell it’s called?" Of course the other had. It was something the director liked to remind them of, when certain orders started to spark questions. 

One day, a king summons you to court. When you get there he’s waiting for you with a kid sitting there next to him, looking all afraid. He tells you kill this child to prove your loyalty. If you don’t this one will be spared, but in my rage at your disobedience, I will kill a hundred more.

So what do you do?

If you kill the kid, that’s on you. You did that with your own hands, and by now you have a pretty good idea of how blood hangs around. If you spare the kid, you get the option to say that well, yeah, so a whole lotta of other people died, but you didn’t pull the trigger yourself. But you’d still know.

"Yeah. I know it." The other sits down, and when he takes the cigarette from Reno’s lips, the Turk realizes that he’s forgotten to light it.

The sky is red in Meteors wake. Not bright. Glowing, but dull, like holding a lighter up to a rusted edge of doorway, with nothing behind it.

The cigarette comes back with its tip smoking.

The city is empty now, evacuation complete, every civilian who would listen is well outside the city limits, or huddled in shelters beneath the ground. Maybe that’s where the Turks should be headed too. Nothing left to do now but wait.

He’s starting to think that maybe there’s never been anything to do but wait, because maybe he’s been playing the kings game longer than he realized. What kind of judgement can you have when the only choices are mitigation and deflection?

He almost says as much to the still, constant presence at his side, but his communicator crackles to life at the same time he opens his mouth, and he takes his orders instead.  
"Come on, boss wants us to get somethin’ from the tower. Don’t ask me, I dunno either."

He doesn’t bother to stub out his smoke, the ember bright as it falls into the lightless shell of the abandoned city.


End file.
